Working together with colleagues in the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) Wales and the Welsh Government, Swansea University has set up the Circular Economy Research and Innovation Group (CERIG) for Wales.
Moving towards a circular economy requires a multi-disciplinary approach, encompassing research and innovation in areas such as: designing products for refurbishment and re-use; developing new materials and extracting useful resources from natural materials; developing new business models that incentivize the manufacturer to design a product for longevity; developing appropriate standards and governance arrangements, and investigating how we can communicate the opportunities and challenge perceptions of the circular economy.
Only by combining expertise across a wide range of disciplines can we truly tackle the systems change needed to make the circular economy a reality.
We have a lot of this expertise in Welsh universities and by working together we can address circular economy challenges.
The proposed aim of the group is to ’connect complementary expertise and experiences to facilitate circular economy innovation and research in Wales’.
The Group Has the Following Objectives:
• Provide a forum to share good practices and facilitate knowledge exchange between academia, business and policymakers.
• Through collaboration, increase circular economy research capacity in Welsh institutions.
• Engage with industry to develop industry-led research.
• Provide evidence to inform Government policy and programmes.
• Develop an online forum to facilitate the exchange of good practice, funding opportunities, news and events.
• Showcase the network’s circular economy outputs internationally, thus supporting the development of international partnerships.
• Collaborate on curriculum development and training.
• Work with the Global Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) network (acknowledged by the United Nations University) to share learning and good practice at regional, national and international levels.
CERIG allows businesses to efficiently and effectively access relevant expertise and knowledge throughout Welsh academia.